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PaintCode Automatically Transforms Vectors Into Valid Code

Many developers have problems with designing their apps due to the lack of knowledge on how to transform their graphics into valid and working Objective C code. Because of this, many semi-professional designers either choose iOS-preset interface elements or they design just badly colored, two-dimensional fields. This obviously leads to many incoherent, poorly designed apps no one wants to buy. If you are not able to do better but still want to offer something in the App Store, this is the only way to do so - even if it’s a very malicious one for pixel lovers.

To give developers an edge, Pixelcut is now offering PaintCode for Mac. It combines detailed and full-featured vector creation with a powerful code compiler to immediately convert your created UI elements into valid Objective-C code, which is ready for copy & paste implementation in Xcode. When starting a new design, you can set for which device and canvas, in which code language and which canvas the app has to compile your design. Then you can start creating, for instance, a button with the various shapes the app offers (traingle, star, rectangle and much more), and optionally apply new colors or even gradients to it using the upcoming selection inspector. With every change and addition you make to your graphics, the code will instantly update in the small editor panel in the bottom of the app window. To see the immense amount of time the tool can save, have a look at the screenshot below. I tried the demo version of PaintCode and started out with a simple oval area, with a light outer and inner shadow applied (usually used to make an object seem plastic). Just these two small UI features need more than 40 lines of standard iOS ObjC code. For more complex (and better-looking) elements, this app is a outstanding time saver.

PaintCode is a tool every busy UI designer and app developer should consider buying. It has an immense feature set and works fast and reliable. You can check out and investigate the Xcode files of various design examples created and coded with PaintCode on the app’s website; there’s also a demo video of the app. If PaintCode seems useful to you then, get it on the Mac App Store for a quite expensive, but still justified, $99.99.

On Breaking Out the Podcast App in iOS 6

Based on Monday’s WWDC 2012 opening Keynote, I can confidently say that Apple is closely listening to their customers, introducing numerous features that the Apple community has been asking for in the previous couple of years. (I really see iOS 6 as a direct response to customer’s wish-lists.) Apple’s goal is to both provide an ecosystem that developers can thrive in, make customers happy, and balance the two by introducing new features in way that makes the most sense. In the course of this discussion, AllThingsD writes that Podcasts will be broken into its own separate app in iOS 6.

People familiar with Apple’s plans tell me that when its new iOS 6 software becomes widely available this fall, podcasts will have their own app, where users will be able to discover, download and play them on mobile devices. Users who access iTunes via laptop and desktop machines will still find them in that version of iTunes, though.

AppAdvice made note that Podcasts, iTunes U, and Audiobooks have been removed from the iTunes app in the iOS 6 beta, sparking thoughts that Audiobooks could find itself reintegrated into the iBooks app, while Podcasts become its own thing.

Myke Hurley of the 70Decibels Podcast Network writes,

However, if Apple are going to make it a separate app it could help highlight the medium even further to people—they’re no longer in the purgatory of the ‘more’ button. What would be even better is if the app comes built in with iOS6 (like the Videos app) or is promoted by a pop-up like iBooks at least.

Podcasts have been neglected for a long time on iOS. While the iTunes Store provides a platform for success, the podcast player itself is currently in a lackluster state, offering only basic functionality for downloaded episodes. As people began listening to more podcasts, alternative 3rd party podcatchers appeared in the form of apps like Downcast and Instacast to fill in gaps for streaming and creating custom playlists. People love talk radio, and podcasts provide a means for both amateurs and professionals to reach large audiences who want to share in the discussion of their favorite topics. In particular, Apple must enjoy the presence of companies like 5by5 and 70Decibels whose success directly corresponds to the Apple community. Apple’s platform lets popular Internet broadcasters like TWiT, CNET, and Revision3 make podcasts available to audiences interested in tech, while companies like CBS and NBC utilize the service to publish the nightly news, political debates, and important broadcasts pertaining to current events.

Podcasts, whether provided as a platform for news or entertainment, aren’t being ignored by Apple. My guess is that it’s in their best interests to expose new customers to the incredible amount of content they host — again I think this is a case where they’re listening to the community and responding accordingly. As with Reading List vs. Instapaper, Apple’s own podcatcher wouldn’t supplant the 3rd party apps in the App Store. Rather, it could do one of two things: 1.) Get more people discovering and subscribing to podcasts through a podcast directory separate from the iTunes Store (currently the conglomerate for all media), and 2.) Provide those customers with a podcatcher that makes downloading, playing, and finding episodes from their subscribed-to podcasts easy. People who want more functionality already have it and will continue to be able to find it from the App Store.

If Podcasts is an app on iOS 6, I’d be really happy to see it happen. There’s a lot of great content available that people are otherwise missing if they only know the iTunes Store for music and video.

Edit 5:42 pm: Updated the article to note that the iTunes app, not the Music app, removed references to Podcasts, iTunes U, and Audiobooks.

[AllThingsD via MacRumors | mentioned: AppAdvice, Myke Hurley]

Why Upgrade Pricing Isn’t Coming To The App Store

The 2012 WWDC keynote has come and gone, and we now know which of the many rumored announcements turned out to be true and which turned out to be false. But there was one unrumored announcement many developers were hoping would be true that failed to materialize altogether: the option to offer paid upgrades and true demo versions for their apps.

Demos and paid upgrades are something that App Store developers (where “App Store” encompasses both iOS and Mac) have long since wanted, as Wil Shipley explained in his blog post “The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades” and as John Gruber and Cabel Sasser discussed on episode 5 of The Talk Show. No doubt there are many Apple users, especially longstanding Mac fans, who would be happy for the opportunity to support their favorite developers and be rewarded with lower prices for new versions of their favorite apps as well (the “99¢ IS TOO EXPENSIVE” crowd need not apply). As Shipley’s post lays out, it would seem there are many good reasons for Apple to implement these. So why haven’t they?

I think it comes down to one of Apple’s core values: simplicity.

The fact that Apple chose to name their online retail presence the “App Store” is, I think, telling. Remember that Apple aims squarely for the mass market (much to the consternation of some advanced and pro users) and remember what shopping at a real life store is like for that market.

When most people go to a store, they don’t expect to take home products that catch their eye and try them out for a limited time. They don’t expect to get reduced prices on the latest version of a product they’ve paid for before. The retail model of a typical store from a consumer’s point of view is simple. You walk in, look for something you want, pay for it, and walk out. This is exactly how Apple’s physical stores work, and it is how their digital stores are designed to work as well.

Whether this is the way digital stores should work is another discussion, and one that is certainly well worth having. But if we assume that this is how Apple wants their stores to work, their policies for not allowing demos and upgrades make sense. In Apple’s physical stores, and indeed nearly all retail establishments, take-home trials and upgrade pricing is nearly unheard of. At best they offer demo units of products you can try, but only ones they choose and only while you remain at the store. Try insisting on half-price for the next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina display because you bought a 13” MacBook Air two years ago and see how far you get before you’re asked to leave.

Developers and longtime computer users may be used to the shareware, time trial, pay-full-price-once-upgrade-cheaply-forever model of buying and selling software, but regular people, the mass market that Apple continues to court first and foremost, aren’t. Adding demos (“I thought this app was free, but now it’s telling me I have to pay to keep using it? What a ripoff!”) and paid upgrades (“Wait, I bought this app last year and now I have to pay again to keep using it? Screw that!”) would introduce a layer of confusion and make buying an app a more arduous process, which would result in people buying fewer apps.

At least, that’s the rationale behind Apple’s decision not to implement them. To be clear: what I just wrote is not my opinion of how things should be. This is only my guess at Apple’s reasoning.

So if Apple is basing their digital stores on their physical ones, how should developers like Wil Shipley and Cabel Sasser handle the problem of making enough money from past and future customers in order to eat and make more cool software? I think Apple thinks they should take cues from how Apple handles their own software transitions: no upgrade pricing, just one reasonable price that is palatable to its target audience. Make your software great and easy to buy, and more people will buy it.

Yes, there are edge cases where some unlucky customers will fall through the cracks (those who bought your old app right before the new one came out) and those who won’t be happy to pay again for the “same” app regardless of how much time has passed (two words: “Tweetie 2”). And it would be great for customers and developers alike if Apple implemented a way to stop selling an old app but still let devs provide bug fixes. But Apple knows that while you can’t please everyone, you can make good money by pleasing the majority. And as long as the majority likes affordable, straightforward app-buying, that’s what they’ll continue to offer.

Strophes

I have a good ear for the English language, but most of the times when I’m listening to music I still want to know exactly what a song says. Unfortunately, for the past years I had to cope with poor solutions to check out a song’s lyrics on the Mac; even worse, all of those methods sported no kind of integration whatsoever with the services I use to listen to music on a daily basis. It’s not just about iTunes anymore: today, my library is on Rdio, new releases are streamed every Tuesday, and I may casually check out a YouTube video or two as I look for that old live set or creepy 80’s Italian music video. Music comes from multiple sources, yet there hasn’t been a single, integrated app that could help in displaying lyrics on the desktop without using ugly and ad-filled lyrics websites.

Developed by Italian Alfredo Delli Bovi, Strophes wants to be the beautiful Mac app that’s integrated with the music apps you’re already using.

Before I delve into the app’s feature set, though, it is worth mentioning how Strophes’ deep skeuomorphic roots will likely fence several users off as they will look at bits of torn paper and stitched leather in disbelief and utter despise for interfaces mimicking real life object. Personally, whilst I am not the biggest fan of Apple’s Calendar and Find My Friends, I recognize how, to most users, Strophes’ appeal lies in its strong resemblance to recent Apple trends and design patterns. In that regard, Strophes almost feels as the app Apple would create if they were to offer their take on displaying song lyrics, which is to say – Strophes is a natural fit for the Mac platform, and, more importantly, it just looks better than any other lyrics app I’ve tried.

Strophes works with a variety of music players, such as Rdio. The full list includes iTunes, Spotify, and Radium as well; through an optional Safari extension – which needs to be downloaded from Strophes’ website – you’ll also be able to load lyrics for videos playing on YouTube.com. Strophes is extremely simple in the way it works: it plugs directly into your active music player, checks for the song that’s playing, and displays lyrics inline fetching them off the Internet. The app uses a lyrics database to find lyrics, and it also displays album artworks and artists information above the actual lyrics. Strophes can control music players, too, but I prefer to keep The Iconfactory’s Take Five on my Mac for those playback and pausing duties. Strophes automatically loads another song as the music player changes, and, as far as features are concerned, it can also visualize an artist’s bio through last.fm integration, and translate lyrics.

In my tests, Strophes has been reliable. Working in tandem with Rdio, it only failed to find lyrics a couple of times; when it did, it provided a link to open lyrics in the web browser. Most of the times, the app loaded lyrics just fine and within seconds.

Strophes is, by far, the best lyrics app I have found on OS X, and it works with the apps I am already enjoying to listen to my music library. You can get Strophes at $4.99 on the Mac App Store.

Skype 5.8 for Mac Adds Mountain Lion Support, New Contact List

Out today, Skype 5.8 for Mac brings a series of changes meant to make the app ready for Apple’s upcoming Mountain Lion, simplify the interface, and improve support for video calls coming from mobile devices. Whereas Skype 5.6, released in March, added support for Lion’s full-screen mode, version 5.8 gets the app ready for Apple’s next major iteration of OS X so you won’t have to “worry about compatibility”. Unfortunately, after an initial test, Skype 5.8 crashed while I was browsing the integrated Facebook feed. The app works on the latest Mountain Lion developer preview, but it seems like Skype will still need to finely tune the software to avoid unexpected quit.

Perhaps more importantly for Mac users, the latest Skype brings back the old Skype’s simplified floating contact list that disappeared after the much criticized transition to version 5.0. Quite ironically, a simplified contact list wasn’t amongst the most shared ideas Skype asked its user base to submit in a contest to propose design ideas; however, the company clearly listened to feedback, and decided to bring back the Contacts Monitor (available from the Window menu through a CMD+3 shortcut) to offer more streamlined access to contacts and groups.

The Contacts Monitor is a resizable floating window listing groups in a toolbar, and contacts with status indicators below them. It provides filters for All, Skype, Facebook, and Address Book contacts, and it allows you to start new chats either via double-click or right-click. The Contacts Monitor is certainly more intuitive and easier to navigate than Skype’s integrated Contacts interface for Skype and Facebook friends. It’s a welcome addition.

In version 5.8, Skype also added better support for video calling from mobile devices. In 5.8, video calls in portrait or landscape mode are automatically adjusted to the right orientation when displayed on a desktop computer. Last, according to Skype, the possibility to open chats in separate windows is “coming soon”.

Skype 5.8 is available as a free download here. You can read the company’s official blog post here.

Reeder 3.0 Review

In 2009, reading news on the iPhone was different. The App Store was only one year old; Twitter wasn’t the information network adopted by mass media and millions of users we interact with today; there was no iPad, no universal apps, and no Flipboard. In 2009, reading news on an iPhone meant having to choose between few decent Google Reader clients, some Twitter apps, and lots of “mobile optimized” web apps.

Then in late 2009, Reeder came around. Created by Swiss developer Silvio Rizzi, I remember writing one of the first public reviews of Reeder for iPhone, which unlike the majority of contestants in the space at the time, sported a highly custom “sepia” interface that would later went on to define Reeder as a brand. Crafted with care and an eye for speed, Reeder not only stood out because it was beautiful to look at – the app was fast, visibly more responsive than Byline and NetNewsWire, easy to navigate in spite of its new UI paradigms, and focused on letting the user easily share links on other networks and services. Reeder 1.0 wasn’t perfect; version 2.0, released a few months later, fixed some glaring omissions of its predecessor (namely, lack of saved state), and introduced an even faster syncing engine and more link sharing options.

Reeder took off. The success of the iPhone app allowed Rizzi to become one of the most well-known names in the indie iOS developer community, redefining iPad RSS readers with a brand new version of Reeder, and then again capturing a large portion of the OS X market with the highly-anticipated Reeder for Mac.

In spite of its obvious merits, it is hard to pinpoint the exact reason behind Reeder’s rise to the top of Google Reader clients. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Google Reader apps on Apple’s App Store now. Rizzi isn’t the “fastest” developer around (Reeder for iPhone was last updated in November 2011), and many valid RSS clients have been released in the past two years, some of them combining traditional RSS functionalities with deeper social integration to offer more compelling, modern alternatives to standard Google Reader syncing and browsing. Yet Reeder has managed to maintain its top position as the go-to Google Reader client for millions of iPhone users.

That’s not to say, however, that Reeder’s constant success and popularity don’t have to account for the profound change in news reading habits that occurred in the past two years. Sometime around 2010 – and I tend to associate this shift with the release of the iPad – a new breed of apps begin grazing the surface of established mobile news reading trends and conventions. Flipboard turned the world of RSS aggregators upside down with embedded discovery and direct integration with social feeds; Twitter clients got more capable, leveraging mobilizers and read-later services to provide a better experience with URLs; Zite brought automatic and intelligent curation to a platform based on RSS, while popular news organizations like CNN and NYTimes kept improving their own iOS apps.

In 2012, people don’t find their news exclusively through Google Reader anymore. That wasn’t true in 2009 either, but the growth of the App Store has certainly catalyzed the process: news travel fast, on a variety of channels, on multiple aggregators, in real-time and in multiple forms. We have become news gatherers.

Reeder 3.0, released today, holds true to its roots of a Google Reader client, but tries to modernize the overall approach and feature set with support for a new service, improved Readability syncing, more sharing options, and a refreshed look. In the first major rewrite of the app since 2010, is Reeder still relevant? Read more

Apple Store 2.2 Update Brings Express Checkout for Faster Online Shopping and Location Aware Retail Pick Ups

The Apple Store app for the iPhone has enabled Apple to revolutionize retail and mobile shopping shopping thanks to features such EasyPay, Personal Pickup, and assistance from the store’s Specialists. In today’s 2.2 update, Apple has added Express Checkout and new location features which focuses on online shoppers and customers picking their orders up from their nearest Apple Retail Store.

Express Checkout speeds up the process of making purchases through Apple’s online store by using your existing payment and shipping options. You can simply complete your order by tapping on the buy button for the items you want to purchase, selecting your options (if applicable), and checking out, then entering the password associated with your Apple ID. You’ll have to sign into Express Checkout through your Account Settings in the Apple Store app (on each device), and agree to the terms of service to use the quick pay feature. A FAQ for Express Checkout is available for your perusal online.

If you have an iPhone 4S and are picking up a purchased item from your local Apple Retail Store, your device can let the specialists know you’re arriving so that your items are ready for pickup before you reach the storefront. By enabling Location-Based Alerts and setting your pick up information in the Account Settings, items for pick up will be waiting for you to carry out when you reach your Apple Retail Store.

The Apple Store 2.2 update is available on the App Store as a free update and download.

Edit 4:03 pm: Edited title to clarify that faster, location-based pickups are not a part of Express Checkout, but a separate feature available on the iPhone 4S.